Trade Secrets
by Matan Nawi
Summary: What happens when one ambitious trader meets another? will two men be able to brave the wasteland or fall victim to its raveges/ rating may change/ OC story/ not lone wonderer centered and my first fanfic!
1. Chapter 1

**Trade secrets**

Act one: A Random Encounter 

Every man has a bullet with a name etched on it.

No man knows whose bullet he carries, be it friend or foe, man, woman, elderly, child or even his own. No man knows when he shall face his bullet; some never meet it, not even in a hail of burning lead at the apex of their lives, others meet it without ever realizing what has transpired.

Every man has a bullet with a name etched on it, but what man holds only one bullet?

(S)

The twilight sun lit the area so it seemed to be ablaze, a gentle breeze uprooted a few grains of sand from the burning mound and threw them far away from where they once lay.

The print left in the sand faded with even the most gentle of winds even this one; the steps every man were wiped away from the surface of the wasteland no matter what were his deeds, hero or scoundrel, savior or oppressor, rich or poor, all stood equal in the eyes of the wasteland and all met the same fate.

The steps blown away by the wind were manmade, this particular man was right now standing at the top of the hill, a medium backpack rested against his leg along with several packages that were that were tightly tied to the pack.

Long pants made of thick unyielding fabric covered his legs partly hiding his makeshift shoes made of very rough animal skin, they didn't seem very comfortable, the sides of his pants held several large full pockets, looking like very lumpy packages.

His torso was covered by a thin long sleeved khaki t-shirt, many signs of wear and repair were present on its visible parts, it was covered by a plain brown shirt.

His head had a large cowboy hat rested on top of it; a thread ran under his jaw holding it in position, a red bandana peeked from under the headdress a knot visible at the back of his head, a pair of goggles were hanging off his neck.

The man's hands held a pair of large binoculars to his eyes as he surveyed the god forsaken desert that had spread before him for miles upon miles; sand upon sand, dunes upon dunes, some distance away from him he saw a cloud of dust rising behind one of the sandy hills to his right.

"_A sandstorm picking up perhaps… or raiders like last time _" he thought for a moment and considered his options, no matter the cause it would be in his best interest to stay clear of that area.

He continued surveying the landscape before him; about two hundred meters to his left he saw a few molerats burrowing around a thorny bush; their sharp prominent incisors were gnawing at the roots of the dried plant whilst their massive paws shot streams of sand all around their round thick hided bodies, one of the creatures raised his head out of the storm of sand aimed its snout at the sky and took a few whiffs of the desert air before returning to its compulsive burrowing.

"_Good_" he thought to himself, the trouble he had gone through to make molerat skin shoes was paying off, or else it would have been him they would have been biting but it would still be cautious not to come too close to them.

"Straight it is then" he told himself.

He sighed deeply, placed his binoculars into the pack before continuing to rummage through it pulling out various items; a compass, a leaflet, a box of sugarbombs and a map wrapped in plastic with abundance of markings scattered all over it.

He laid the map on the ground before him, placed the magnetic needle at its corner allowing it to point north, he read the leaflet again; a large sword with spread wings erupting from it with three cogwheels under it decorated the paper, neatly typed black writing was printed across the paper;

_To all people of wasteland_

_The brotherhood of steel hereby invites you to come to the unveiling of its latest achievement of technological marvel._

_With the hard work and sacrifice of the dedicated members of our brotherhood led by head scribe __Rothchild__, Sarah Lyons and the assistance of a diligent team of scientists from Rivet city the brotherhood has taken a monumental leap in allowing a better quality of life to all the people of the capital wasteland._

_Samples of the produce of this creation will be given freely to all fair people attending this gathering to allow you to better understand that what once were scares and a matter of discord will now be given freely._

_The unveiling will be held at the Rivet city at the twenty eighth of November. _

_Owyn Lyons _

_Elder of the brotherhood of steel_

_D.C. chapter_

_Note: all traders working in cooperation with Ernest "uncle" Roe are to bring with them any beast of burden they may posses, any other trading caravan group is recommended to follow in suite as trading rights and contracts will be signed on the spot with the head scribe. _

_Residential areas without regular caravan movement will be allowed to negotiate the use of nearby brotherhood patrols to delivering copious amounts of the product._

The folded leaflet was stuffed back into his backpack, the brotherhood had something, they were in a sharing mood and he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

He turned back to his compass, the needle was pointing steadily at one direction, he changed the direction of the plastic gadget so the letter N was in line with the needle, he looked around for a landmark, directly west of him he saw the Springville school and he searched for it on the map drawing an imaginary straight vertical line from it as he did, next he moved the magnetic needle over to the town he left yesterday, "Big Town", another imaginary line was drawn from that location at a very specific angle which he had bothered checking every few minutes since he had set out, when he found were the two lines met he knew his exact location, somewhere between Springville and Super Duper Mart.

"_If I continue heading southeast, I'll reach Wilhelm's raft, across the bridge and through the stations, shouldn't take more then a few days_" he thought to himself, he had already been to the aircraft carrier more than a few times and knew the way there meant getting past super mutants, feral ghouls and god knows what else, but he always managed to get across with all of his luggage, and rumor had it that the path was now guarded by brotherhood paladins and knights so it might even be easier than usual.

He returned the map and the compass to his pack, shook the box of cereal; it was almost empty.

He poured the content into his hand before throwing away the box.

"Here Sid, Tom, come here kiddo" he called out.

A few seconds later a thick wet tongue licked his hand clean of the bomb shaped sugar coated corn-flakes, he patted the two headed bovine where its two necks converged, one of the heads mooed in joy, both turned and looked at him with their big black eyes, at the side of the ox's body a vertical eight and a large R were branded.

He checked that all of his cargo was secured to the beast's back; a few sacks containing an assortment of items left over from his latest venture, one sack contained what he knew to be stimpacks, syringes of morphine, and inhalers full of Jet, another sack which made a metallic clung every few steps the Brahmin took was filled to the brim with magazines, various bullets of different caliber and a miniature cloak field generator that would normally be attached one's wrist, the last vessel contained anything from ropes, chains, meat hooks, picture frames and toy cars to a lawn mower blade and a blue astronaut lunch box, there were many other bags on the beast but all were empty, an ammo box slung at its side and locked with an electric code lock was full of three thousand caps he had earned two days ago at big town, selling them robot parts, weapons, explosives and stealth boys. He had kept to himself one of the contraptions in case things would get too rough on him and a rifle to protect himself and his property.

"Kids, guess what?" he addressed the warm brown furred beast.

"We're heading towards the city by the river" both pairs of eyes looked away in protest of this statement, one of them even let out a very loud moo.

"I know you don't like it there but we've got to get supplies, in three weeks we could get some new thing that the brotherhood is giving away and I already promised uncle R that we'd be there" one head turned to the sky, looking at the partially visible moon, the other stared at the ground were one of its hoofed legs was kicking the dirt away.

"Come on" he tugged at one of the ropes on the beast's back, prompting it to move forward, he lifted his pack up and heaved it over onto his back.

He pulled a long metal rod that stuck out from between the bags exposing a wooden body, a bolt and a trigger, all the protection he had and needed for his travels in the wastes.

He slung the rifle over his shoulder, checking it had a full magazine in it and an extra round in the chamber, a trick Harith had taught him and had saved him more than a few times of unsuspecting raiders.

The trader and his pet finished going down the hill they were on, he checked his compass to see whether he was still on the right track, he looked forward at his compass and then forward again, right in front of him was a ravine created by two dunes, a perfect place for a raider ambush, but if he wanted to stay on track and not get lost he had to go through it. He un-slung his rifle holding it in both hands squeezing it as hard as he could, he followed the beast into the canyon.

_Oh, saint Monica, hallow be thy name, blessed be all who conquer thy trials"_

He kept shifting his eyes from one hill top to the other, expecting a raider to jump up and start spraying down the ravine he was walking in every second.

"_I, your humble servant plead you, take me into your everlasting embrace and aid this lost boy reach his destination_"

He was three quarters of the way through.

"_Spread thy veil of protection over me, am..__" _A roaring thunder erupted to his right, small clouds of dust flew into the air all around him, he dropped to the ground and rolled onto his back; aiming his rifle to the hill the noise had come from, no one was there.

He was breathing rapidly; the Brahmin continued walking as though nothing had happened.

He rolled again, lying flat on his stomach, sat up to his knees until he finally managed to push himself up to a standing position, dropping his bag.

His heart was racing, threatening to burst out of his chest with every beat, his ears were flooded with the noise of the organ moving, he smelled the gunpowder in the air, his grip of the gun tightened, his finger rested of the trigger.

"Sid, danger!" he commanded. The mutated bovine stopped dead in its tracks and sat down, he heard a voice from over the hill shout.

" Die bitch, di.." the exclamation was cut short by another explosion, closely followed by a shout that was nothing short of an expression of sheer terror and agony, a woman's voice erupted from somewhere behind the sand.

"WILD FANG, NO! SHOOT THE SONOFA BITCH!" it ordered, a burst of a few bullets was clearly heard beyond his sight, he crept up along the side of the hill, his weapon at the ready. He saw a body torn in half by one of the explosions he had heard earlier, the man's insides were torn open by the force of the explosion, organs were spilling out of his abdomen freely, his intestines seemed to stretch for two meters away from their source, the man's arms were scooping his insides back, even under his tan skin it was easy to tell he was losing color, blood poured out of him like a fountain, then he was still and as white as a sheet of paper.

The trader continued circling the hill, he saw another man holding an R91 assault rifle, he was spraying bullets madly at one direction, though he was hardly aiming as the rifle bucked wildly under his grip, the merchant pointed his old rifle at the raider's head, drew a breath but before he could pull the trigger the outlaw's head was pushed back as though it had hit a solid object as he advanced only to fly back forward as though by an invisible rubber band, pulling the rest of his body along with it in a drop forward, the Raider didn't even hear the shot that had ended his life.

He ignored the death of the man and continued walking.

Another body was unveiled before him lying on its back, it was riddled full of bloody spots with metal imbedded into it; a rather large piece of shrapnel was lodged next to its eye and several others at the neck; the man seemed to be so peaceful as though he was asleep but the trails of blood gave his fate away.

"Missed, bitch!" it was the same woman's he had heard a few seconds prior to discovering the three dead bodies, she had let out a fierce battle cry, he could hear her charging through the thick sand.

"Your ass is mine!"

He took the corner, what he had seen before him was something he had never imagined he would encounter in his life; the female raider he had heard but not seen was flat on her back, she coughed loudly, thick blood erupted out of her mouth and covered her face. Hiding her midsection was a crouched figure, draped in what seemed to be a long black dress, covering it from the waist down, a roomy white shirt covered its torso and was stuffed into the other piece of garment, a matching headdress covered the back of its head with twin black circles holding the headwear in its place.

The figure seemed to be pressing something into the raider's chest, he made out a movement of its right shoulder from under the cloth and a loud snapping noise followed, the raider drew breath no more, her eyes glazed over and he heard something hit the sand heavily.

For a moment he stood there, his rifle pointed at the back of the black and white being before him, this man had just taken out four raiders head on.

"Don't move!" the trader ordered "Hands in the air!" the outlandish draped figure didn't budge.

"I said" he shouted at the character "hands in the fucking air!".

A calm calculated response came back at him "You also said not to move", it was a man's voice, rough, loud, almost primitive in a way, an odd moment passed, the trader thought for a second, this man had just brushed against death and didn't mind it enough to even panic when someone ordered him at gun point, behind his back.

"Just put your hands up" finally, the man raised his hands into the air, one of them had blood on it, but they were both empty as far as he could tell.

"Stand up" a moment later the man had gotten up on his feet, uncovering the female raider's body; a hunting knife was jammed all the way down to the hilt in the middle of her chest, her own hand held it in.

The man had stretched to his full height and the trader wish he hadn't; he could now see this person was at least twice his size and a foot and a half taller.

"May I turn around?"

He was slightly taken aback by the question, he noticed he was losing his control of the situation, and he had to keep that.

"No!" he barked at the man, but it seemed that he had only asked out of politeness as he had already turned around; a pleasant face looked back at him deep warm honey eyes looked back at him, a thick white beard obscured most of his jaw, the facial hair was only held back by two scars coming from the corners of his mouth to his ears; a Glasgow grin, an expression of utter amazement flashed on his face but only for a moment.

"Ah, so you're a merchant" the man lowered his hands to his sides, next to a belt which held a pistol, he could see the man was a bit fuller than he was; his belly protruded the spacious garment and there were strange bumps running down from his shoulders to his belly.

"Hands UP!" The man sighed and barely moved his elbows so his hands were hovering around his shoulders, slightly tilting his body to the left and to the right.

"What makes you say that?" he inquired.

"Say what? Oh, that you're a merchant?" he nodded.

"That's an easy one"

"Do tell"

"If you were a raider, you would have tried shooting me while I had my back turned" he pointed his thumb at the dead raider behind him "You hardly hold your weapon right so you're not a Steeler or a merc'" he pointed his finger at the butt end of the rifle "and if you were a.."

"What's wrong with the way I hold my gun?"

"The stock is in your armpit, not the shoulder socket, you're aiming from there and not of eye level, so I'm guessing you're having trouble hitting anything over thirty yards away, and neither of the two I mentioned would be caught dead with anything short of an assault rifle"

The trader's eyes stared at the man with amazement, he hadn't told anyone about the problem he had aiming.

"As I was saying, if you were a normal wastelander, you would have bolted out of here as soon as the first explosion hit, but being chased and losing some of your cargo along the way seemed too much to bear" the black and white figure ended.

"So you know what I'm not, but how did you know what I am?"

"Simple, you have the wears of a merchant and no offence" he pinched his own nose "but you smell like Brahmin" The trader was absolutely dumbstruck, he didn't know if he wanted to shoot the man or burst out laughing.

"And I kind of saw you at Roe's place three weeks ago" he looked at the oddly draped man for a few seconds, he vaguely remembered Roe telling him he had a guest that shouldn't be disturbed, which he found funny given the Mechanist and the Antagonizer were fighting each other outside as loudly as possible.

"Then you're a trader too?"

"Of a sort, I deal with" He paused for a second seemingly at a loss of words "high risk commodities"

The merchant motioned the barrel of his rifle to the man's abdomen, there was an obvious lie in his latest statement.

"Can you please move that thing away? It's making me nervous" he indicated at the rifle with his left hand and took a step with his right foot.

" I don't think so, 'cause no trader I know walks around with no cargo"

A blur of white flashed towards his gun, he pulled on the trigger of his weapon; sending the lead projectile, but its target was already gone.

He felt a sharp pain right under his sternum; an elbow had hit him square in the solar pollex, he fell to the ground gasping for air, his rifle was still in the air held by his assailant whom switched the ends of the rifle he was holding, one arm was all he needed to point the weapon at its owner, a thick finger was wrapped placed around the trigger, the long barrel was pointed at his head, only a few inches away from it; he desperately wanted to move his hands but they were frozen to his midsection, he closed his eyes.

" BANG!" the other shouted and jerked his arm as though the gun fired "You're dead"

"First thing" he spat at the trader of goods on the ground " Never state your intent before attempting to kill someone, you did that by changing your aim" the weapon was thrown on the sand next to him, his pretend murderer walked around him, bent over moving his hands under the trader's armpits, he could feel the man's breath on his cheek.

"Second thing" he whispered into his ear " I dropped my cargo so I could fight, take a deep breath when I stop moving you" the man was hoisted into the air; his arms were held high over his head stretching his body, he drew one long deep breath after another, his thoughts rested on his own pack just a few yards from where he was.

"Third thing, you just experienced high risk commodities being exchanged" he was slowly lowered to the ground and surprisingly enough felt that he could stand again.

He heard the other man walk behind him, by the time he turned around he only saw the end of his dress vanishing at the side of the hill, a few moments later a moment later he saw him once more, a pack that ran the full length of the individual's long back at both the top end the bottom rested heavy metal boxes with electric combination locks on then, he could see various colors of garment spilling out of the bag along with many barrels sticking out to the side; he recognized an R91 assault rifle, a DKS- 501 sniper rifle, a laser rifle and a plasma rifle.

His belt now held two more weapons; another much larger revolver was jammed into the garment mirroring the other pistol and a thin long sword was sheathed on the left, a Chinese assault rifle was held in both his hands.

"Cargo" the man pointed his thumb at his back.

"I can see that" he blinked and took the sight in once more; a man as large as a super mutant, carrying the weight of two Brahmin and the firepower of two brotherhood of steel patrols.

For a brief time both men just looked at one another, studying each other, slowly the shorter man squatted and picked up his rifle, never moving his eyes from the other man though he seemed to be more concerned with the sun.

"So…" started the miniature titan "where are you headed?" he kept looking at the sky.

"Rivet" the younger looking one shot back, the other man turned his attention to him with a wide smile.

"Really?"

"Yeah"

"Well, I'm headed there myself, so I hope you won't mind me tagging along" the young trader raised an eyebrow.

"I just tried to kill you and you want to come with me?" he inquired, the other man chuckled and slung the foreign rifle over his shoulder.

"If I ostracize every person whom tries to kill me, because they thought I was something I wasn't, I might as well move to vault seventy seven".

"_What's wrong with living in a vault?" _the merchant thought"So you get that a lot, huh?" the other man moved closer, resting a hand on the other's shoulder.

"You have no idea".

(S)

Night was soon approaching on the two traders and Brahmin, they had traveled for hours without any occurrences, a quick discussion led them to the decision to make camp overnight, though the older man refused three spots which seemed to be absolutely descent and only agreed to stop on the fourth; at the bottom of three dunes.

The younger member of the two pulled out his map and compass and began looking for landmarks but the darkness of the night was making it rather hard to spot anything.

"We're next to the Super-Duper mart, right here" the other man commented pointing somewhere slightly north of the raider position.

"What makes you say that?" the trader asked, he had already took notice of his companion's orientation skill as he navigated without a map, compass or any other type of geographical aid.

"Look over that hill" he gestured with his head to the right "or at that" he pointed at a tall post directly in front of him, at its top were the letters SDM and an arrow pointing at them.

"We should move" the merchant hastily folded his map back into the backpack along with the magnetic needle, he pushed the stock of his rifle into the ground to help him get up but found himself held down.

"It's ok, start a fire so we can get some shut-eye" he pushed the man's hand off his shoulder and sprung to his feet.

"You might think that a raider camp is a nice view, but I'm not as crazy or as brave as you" he pulled his pack on onto his back and started marching.

"Sid, Tom com.." he found himself being held back as he tried to keep walking, he felt the other man's grip on his packs handle, he stopped and turned around.

"What's wrong with you?" he shot at the other man "There" he pointed at the hill "is a camp of twenty raiders close enough for you to see, and you want to make camp right next to it!"

"You haven't heard the news lately, have you?" he thought for a moment, the last time he heard the news was in Big Town two days before he left.

"Not over the past few days, why?"

"I quote Three Dog on this one" the tall man cleared his throat, next came an emulation that he could have sworn he was standing next to a radio.

"Good evening boys and girls, this is your master of ceremony, Three Dog!" He howled loudly, mimicking the DJ "and now it's time for some news"

"Remember that cool cat from good old one o one, you know, the one looking for his dad and fighting the good fight, apparently some people haven't, like the raiders in the super duper mart, I mean how hard is it to recognize a man with three big numbers on his back? Anyway, that peacekeeper went down there, god knows why and cleared the place out of anything that had spikes, Mohawks, leather or IQ for that matter, nice going kid, keep it up" for a second he looked at the clean cut man

"get the picture?" he was answered with a nod "Good, now start a fire"

A few minutes later they were both sitting by a warm campfire on their packs, the Brahmin was a bit behind them, three large steaks were being cooked by the fire, some normal small talk ensued, both talked about various past trades they had, some good merchandise they'd like to get their hands on, fights they had and women.

"And then she said 'don't worry, that's just my dad and brothers, you know the big game hunters'" he mimicked a teen's voice perfectly, both of them laughed loudly, the older man had finished both his portions of meat and the other was done with his, though it was only half eaten.

"Needless to say, the wasteland was graced by the sight of my bare ass jogging that night"

"And how old were you when this happen?" the younger one of the two asked.

"Let's see, I recon it was seven years ago so no more than sweet sixteen" the other replied.

"Wait, you're twenty three! But the beard, the white hair"

"Bah, genetics and four weeks without a razor"

"Amazing" he stared into the flames recounting the tale "And you really wrestled a giant molerat?"

"That I did, got the scars to prove it too" he looked at him for a few seconds, and came to a startling realization.

"Man, all this and I don't even know your name" he chuckled at the discovery.

"Hawiya, Bethaka Hawiya"

"Hawaii?" he wondered what kind of a loon named his son like that.

"No, Ha- wi-ya" the man spelled his name in the sand.

"_Crazy name for a crazy guy " _he thought "What does it mean?"

"Wind blower, you?"

"Tobias Richards, trader extraordinaire, no product too rare, no place too far and future trader king" Hawiya smiled widely at him, the sight was a bit odd as he constantly seemed to be grinning courtesy his scars.

"Hmm.." the scared man sounded.

"What, you don't think I'm kidding do you?"

"Are you really aiming for that, the king of all traders?"

"You bet your sweet ass I am"

"Tell you what, I happen to know a few people that require an honest trader, someone they can count on to be punctual, discreet and most importantly wouldn't sell them cheap products, if you can prove yourself by the time we reach Rivet tomorrow I'll connect you with 'em"

Tobias looked at the other man's face and could tell he was dead serious yet he laughed himself into a fit, he couldn't stop himself , this man was just too much of a joker to put into word he continued laughing for a few minutes.

"You.." he let out between one gasp and exhalation, holding his ribs as hard as he could, tears rolled down his face "think..that" he chuckled once more "we can get" he let out another huge burst of air "by tomorrow" he finally managed to stop his giggling.

"I admit you're amazing, navigating without aids, do great imitations, and how you knocked me down god knows, but how are we going to get through D.C in a day? Fly over it?"

"I mean, maybe I haven't heard the news lately but the tunnels take time to navigate, and muties need dodging" the other man seemed insulted.

"Get your map out!" he was ordered, the clean shaved man complied, and spread the piece of paper over the sand, this he had to see.

"You want to go like this" he pointed at their destination; Wilhelm's Wharf his finger then dragged itself over the bridge through the various metro stations and finally to the aircraft carrier "right?" he was answered with a nod.

"A week's worth of travel"

"but what we're going to go like this" he pointed at the same point of origin but this time, dragged his finger along the length of the river, stopping on land next to the Jefferson Memorial and straight to the city.

"You're forgetting something"

"What?"

"You can't swim in that river for that long, not unless you want an extra arm to scratch you back with"

"The solution to that obstacle, you'll see tomorrow" the paper was folded and handed back to him, he laid back and gazed at the stars

"_There's no way across the Potomac without the bridges_" he assured himself in his own mind "_Just no way_" he heard his companion opening his pack and rummage through it.

"Say, got some soft and green?" the older man asked, he reached down into his own pocket, felt the two stacks of bills, pulled a stack of green papers clasped together by a rubber band and threw it to the other man's waiting palm.

"Thanks, see you in a bit" the other man got holding the papers in one hand, a glass nuka-cola bottle in the other and walked over one of the hills surrounding the camp, though he could hardly make out his shape long before he vanished behind the sand.

"_When she calls…"_ he thought to himself.


	2. a random encounter part two

A Random Encounter, part two

The sound of the wind hammering against the brick walls had grown stronger and stronger in the past few minutes, darkness enveloped his surroundings, a fire of old boxes and wood he had stripped off of some of the shelves crackled before him, it had kept him warm every night for the past week.

The former shelter, had turned into his own personal dungeon.

A loaded sub machine gun was held in one of his hands, he was listening to any out of the ordinary noises, any noise at all; when they came last time they didn't hear them, they didn't see them, they spent all two minutes of the fight trying to find who was killing them but couldn't find anything, not a single damn thing

"_This time it would be different_".

He sat there by the fire, no matter where he looked he could see the faces of his friends looking back at him, he saw the bed he had spent every night he hadn't worked, always with a different woman; their faces looked back at him, at first they were the faces he remembered from the time he had ravished them, willing and sometimes not so, it didn't matter back then.

Now he saw their new faces; charred flesh, molten skin with their eyes gone leaving only empty sockets, bullet wounds at the middle of the head, some of them no longer even had faces anymore, he wiped a single tear off his cheek and held back a sob, his kind didn't cry, ever.

He turned his head away to a different corner, he saw himself kicking someone straight in the ribs, he remembered the man had entered looking for shelter from the storm outside not knowing his clan was there, he had nothing of value on him so they kicked him until he stopped crying but then he saw the corpse of his leader, right were the man was a second ago; all that remained of him was a pair of legs with tight leather wrapped around them, he saw the rest turn to ashes before his eyes and blown away by a breeze.

His own leather draped legs were curled up to his chest, avoiding any boney spikes and metal next to it, his arm was warped around his knees.

He looked into the fire, there were no ghosts in it, no shadows to haunt him from his past.

He stared into the dancing blazes, for so long not even he could tell how much time had passed; he found comfort in the swirling shapes before him, they were so relaxing. For a moment he had forgotten about everything, his abused childhood, his dead comrades, he even let his guard down for a second not noticing that only the tips of his fingers were on his weapon.

An eruption of metallic noise brought him of his trance; cans of food hit the bare concrete floor of the compound, he traced the noise to the row of shelves right before him, then he saw him.

The fool was a thin man, standing at the distance, barely noticeable, his hands were at the center of his body holding a weapon no doubt, he saw him starting to move his hands, taking aim, but he was faster, so much faster than that of the other man's hands which hardly seemed to move as he pulled the trigger, a hailstorm of lead erupted from his barrel down between the rows of shelves; the firearm moved wildly in his hands, bucking and pulling upwards, he himself had fallen flat on his back from the force of the recoil.

Click, click; he heard weapon's hammer hitting the empty space of the chamber, he quickly pulled another magazine, slight fumbling but he pulled the slide and opened fire once more, repeating the process all over again.

He scrambled to a standing position and looked at his target; it was down on the ground, arms stuck out in awkward angles, it didn't seem to be moving.

He reloaded his weapon and sprinted forward keeping his eyes on the dead man while jumping over boxes and nearly slipping over a few fallen bullet riddled cans.

He reached the end of the row of wooden containers, for all this time his target hadn't moved, it had to be dead, he hollered in triumph, raising his arms in the air as a sign of his recent victory.

The gunman turned to the left and saw a mannequin; it was big to say the least standing well above him, its arms were folded across its chest, its eyes were closed, a white wig and fake beard draped its head, it looked almost real to him.

"YEAH BITCH WHO DA MAN? TJ!" he exclaimed, shooting his leg at the dolls groin before releasing another cry of joy.

He now turned to his former adversary; a rather heavily clothed person; thick leather boots showed from under his pants, a thick sweatshirt covered his torso with matching gloves, his face obscured by a bandana and a pair of sunglasses

Taking long powerful, proud strides as he approached, he looked down at his kill with glee and contempt, many holes riddled the body, he couldn't guess which one was the fatal one, failing to notice something odd was missing from this picture.

He bent down and started going through his targets pockets, only then did he notice what was missing; there wasn't a drop of blood anywhere to be found, he quickly pulled the piece of cloth off of the face, cold plastic eyes were looking back at him.

"Oh shi.." he failed to complete his sentence; a thick, powerful arm had found its way around his throat, hoisting him up while pushing itself against his windpipe, his feet dangling a foot off the ground. He didn't even have the time to try and struggle before he felt a cold piece of metal jabbed into his throat and pulled back, jets of blood poured out as his heart beat.

A cold hollow object was inserted into the wound but was removed shortly after, in his last few moments of conciseness he was dropped down to the floor, he tried moving his limbs but they didn't respond at all.

"Usually I'd have snapped your neck" his unseen attacker whispered into his ear "but you kicked me in the balls, TJ, so we'll call it even"

(S)

The warmth of the fire surrounded him, kept his surrounding well lit and comfortable, one of his hands traveled the length of the two headed bull, the other held his hunting rifle against his chest.

He could see all of the scenery around him; from one hill to the other, his ears picked up every small noise produced next to him, if anything would even approach him he would know it first, neither the good sighting conditions nor the rifle or even his own alertness did anything to calm his nerves.

His traveling companion had left to heed nature's call twenty minutes ago; not a long span of time on its own but he had just heard a fire fight breakout somewhere in the distance at the same direction Hawiya had left, and he experience had taught him that it's better to be paranoid every moment you're out in the wastes and make it out alive then be carless for a second and die in an instant.

"Hail to camp!" he heard the man call from the other side of the hill, in his rough primal voice, his allowed himself to relax a bit; a sigh of relief escaped his mouth.

He saw the white bearded face of his friend come over the top of the hill, the weird composition of clothes covering his body and his plump belly, he held three nuka-cola bottles in one hand and a stack of green bills in the other.

"What took you so long?" the young man inquired as the other took his seat next to him, placing the glass containers between them, one of them was filled with a darker liquid than the others and seemed to have been resealed.

"Heard that gunfight a few minutes ago?"

"Yeah"

"A rad-scorpion gave a new definition to the term ' being caught with your pants down'"

"I heard auto-fire, you're carrying a pistol" the young man pressed on.

The other man seemed to be impressed at the question, but not by too much, he pulled the pistol out of his belt where it had been holstered; it had a very long thick barrel, which he screwed off, shortening it by a few inches but it still had, a barrel much longer than a usual ten millimeter pistol.

"Think fast" he threw it at the younger man who grabbed it with both hands letting his rifle meet the ground.

"See the safety?" asked the older of the two, the younger flipped the gun, saw it; it had two options, he motioned with his head.

"Put it on the second setting, pull the slide, then turn it an extra notch" he did as he was ordered and to his surprise there was a third unmarked setting, he aimed the firearm at the sand before him but hesitated.

"Hold it with both hands and then pull the trigger, slowly" there was an extra emphasis on the last word. He placed his hand over the other and squeezed the metal hinge; a stream of bullets left in quick succession throwing sand into the air along with his hands which now pointed somewhere at the sky, if he hadn't held it with both hands it would have departed from them at that moment.

"A SILENCED AUTO-PISTOL!" He exclaimed looking at the other man wide eyed.

"Yep, a Mauser" the trader held the pristine weapon in his open hands, the other took it away, replacing it with a cold cola bottle.

The handgun had its safety switched on again, the silencer re-screwed, holstered, a bottle of cola took its place in the man's hand.

"Cheers"

"Salut" both men opened their drinks and took a cold refreshing sip.

"What's in the other one?" asked the curious trader of his elder.

"Remember the rad-scorpion?"

"Yeah"

"Got a woman in Rivet's science team whom thinks poison helps grow their vegetable, twenty caps the bottle"

"You're kidding!"

"No, but here's a good one; a mercenary, a trader and a super mutant walk into a bar, care to hear the rest?"

"Nah, already been on the wrong end of that one" he took another swing at his drink, he saw his partner looking into the sky again, he opened his mouth to ask why was he so obsessed with the heaven but the albino spoke first.

"It's late, I'll take watch, we have a long walk in the morning and a detour to boot" the trader of high risk commodities moved himself onto one of the boxes attached to his bag; slightly slouched he pulled out his sword, a grinding stone and began to move the latter over the former letting out a small muffled scratching noise as he began sharpening the blade.

The clean cut trader knew better than to argue with a man whom had just agreed to take first watch with a sword in his hand, he turned to the side and watched his companion sharpen his weapon for a few moments before closing his eyes and going to sleep, thinking of what the other man had in store for them the following day especially this new unknown detour he had just decided upon, and how they were going to pass the river without the bridges.

(S)

Warm waves washed over him, hitting his body at different points; one had hit him on the eyes turning the darkness of his shut eyes a bright red. He shifted his body to the other direction, away from the flash of light, he heard some kind of movement around him.

"_Close_" he thought to himself, his mind was still foggy from sleep, it was clearer now; a light scratching noise, two smooth surfaces running on across the other, it grew closer and further in an alternating rhythm.

The young trader, now smelt an odd combination of cold burnt ashes, sweat, and oxen; the three foul odors assaulted in unison turning him wide awake yet he was sleepy at the same time.

"Saint Monica in heaven, what is that!" he exclaimed while sitting up, daring to creak a single eye open while he stretched, his nose was now free of the terrible scents but he was awake never the less.

As he looked around he saw the sun creeping over the horizon, always a magnificent sight, a new day was breaking, slowly heating the surrounding to their usual unbearable, scorching temperature. He remembered the strange noise he had awaken to, only finding his albino companion sheathing his sword, he found the picture very familiar and came to a realization.

"You didn't wake me up for my shift" he groaned as he finished stretching, opening his other eye, finding his rifle at arm's reach, he picked it up and gotten up on his feet, quickly opened and closed the bolt of the firearm, strangely enough, no sand had entered the rifle throughout the night.

"I said I'll take watch, not first watch" the large man answered back, he had already hoisted his luggage onto his back, an empty package of Yum-Yum Deviled Eggs was at his feet, he turned his face towards the juvenile.

"Get your stuff together, if we leave in ten minutes, we'll reach the city by this afternoon"

"Yeah, about that" he scratched his head before collecting his hat and bandana off the sand, "you mentioned something about a detour yesterday" he continued, pulling his backpack onto his back, as though by a magic wand the two headed beast he rested upon had gotten up to it's feet without being ordered.

"What about it?"

"What is it?"

"We're going to the supermarket" a dumbfounded look took over his face.

"_Why in god's name does he want to go there, if it's raider free, it's also free of any goods_" he thought though his response was far shorter "Why?"

"I think I saw something interesting there last night, but I couldn't investigate, it being that late and me being tired"

"You haven't slept all night, hardly what I'd call alert, besides what could you find there that's worth the time?"

"Knowledge, my young friend and that means power" a glimpse of condescendence echoed in the bearded man's voice.

"I'm only four years younger than you, so don't go acting all high and mighty on me" he shot back

"My caps were on three" Hawiya chuckled, checking that both the firearms were properly holstered in his belt and had their safety on before turning towards the direction the large sign had pointed, the same direction he had disappeared last night.

"Doesn't matter, because we're going straight to the city" the young trader stomped his foot in the sand, the albino merchant turned back to him slightly sighing.

"Look, I blew all of my ten millimeter rounds on that 'scorp last night, so I need to restock, that place was full of brain dead idiots, carrying whatever they could find, and that type of ammo and the weapons that use it are the most common out there"

"But why go there! It's dangerous, we'll find someone on the way and barter the rounds from them, worst case we just get it from ol' lady Sparkle"

"What makes you so sure we'll find anyone on the way?" Tobias opened his mouth to answer but closed it.

"What if we get attacked before we get to Sparkle's?" the clean cut man opened his mouth again only to shut it once more.

"The only other weapon I can readily use is this" he pointed at the revolver held by his belt "The rest are meant for others, I only got twenty rounds for that on me, takes a while to reload, even if it can blast through combat armor, more than six shots and I'll be scrambling for cover just to reload" he now remembered that merchants don't use their merchandise to keep it in good condition for their customers.

"And if I run out of ammo then, I'm stuck with just a sword, not a good thing against those talon guys or Yao Guai"

"On the other hand, we know that the Super Duper mart is safe, it might have enough ammo to allow us to travel safely and we have other points of interests there"

"Fine, fine we're going there!"

"_No wonder he's a trader, he could sell rad-away to a ghoul like that_" the adolescent thought

"That's good to hear, now come on" the chubby bearded man started walking over the tall hill between them and the former raider compound.

"Sid, Tom, come!" the trader and his Brahmin followed in suite of the older man, quickly catching up to him at the top of the hill.

At the top of the sandy mound it was revealed to him how close were they actually were to the outlaw stronghold; the hill they were on top of stood at the very edge of the former shopping complex's parking lot, a few cars were scattered across the tarmac, most of them had exploded by the looks of their engines, a large silver orb with thin fine long needles protruding from it lay at the middle of the parking lot, riddled full of holes of various caliber, next to one of the cars was the fresh corpse of a car sized black scorpion, its stinger missing numerous puncture wounds across it's thorax and head oozed a thick yellow substance.

At the far end of the parking lot, where the shopping complex started were several chains hanging from the ceiling, some with meat hooks holding decaying mutilated corpses, some even skeletons.

"Lets go" his companion nudged him, both men and beast of burden slowly walked down the tall pile of sand, sometime half slipping half sliding a few feet with a new step taken.

Tobias kept his hands on his rifle, even if the place was raider free it didn't mean it was safe from other forms of threat, the rattling of the rusty metal chains made him nervous, every shadow that moved seemed to him like another outlaw sneaking around the corner, several time he had almost called out to his partner only to realize that the enemy was a parking meter.

He looked down on the black tar held rubble they were walking on top of, a few drops of dry blood were present next to large congregated pools of the substance, he couldn't estimate how many people were killed to create such a large mass of it. Finally when they stood at the end of the parking complex he saw that the wall of the complex had a few bullet holes in it, along with scorch marks and corrosive stains.

"So much blood, but where are all the bodies?" asked the trader

"Probably filling the bellies of every wasteland creature that came across here in the past few days"

"Interesting" the older of the two commented, examining the wall next to the remains of the metal doors; the frames held mostly air, small portions of twisted metal remained where the hinges were placed.

"What?"

"Never mind, are you coming in or keeping watch?" the older man inquired

"I'll keep watch"

"Suite yourself" said the merchant before disappearing behind the flapping doors.

He turned toward his Brahmin, and started scanning the parking lot and the surrounding area for anything that might resemble a threat, but he was to find none today.

After a few minutes, he started taking in the scenery before him, realizing that the cars were actually set in an interesting half crescent shape, he noticed that his location was actually very badly set for protection but that the vehicles before him offered great protection to any offensive forces approaching.

"_You hardly hold your weapon right…__having trouble hitting anything over thirty yards away… not in the shoulder socket_" he remembered the words of his companion from their original encounter, how he had known about his aiming problem, and how to properly aim a rifle.

"The stock in the shoulder socket" he told himself raising his rifle, placing the butt end of it between his shoulder and his torso, it was slightly uncomfortable reaching so far for the flaps and he could only guess the general direction he was aiming at, but it somehow felt better than his usual shoot from the hip approach.

"Aim at eye level" he repeated the man's words from yesterday, and tilted his head so that his right eye was in line with the sights.

"_It's very inconvenient to fire like this_" echoed in his head, he lowered his firearm back to its usual position

Sid mooed loudly, eliciting a stroking from his owner a few minutes later his traveling companion come through the blasted doors, dragging a large blanket he was holding by all four ends making a makeshift sack.

"Ever hear of the term, he who dares, wins?"

"No"

"Well you have now" the sack was thrown open revealing its content; dozens of packs and cans now lied on the floor; Salisbury steak, insta-mash, pork an' beans, yum yum deviled eggs, cram and even mac & cheese all in copious amounts, he even saw a few magazines full of ammo among the food.

"Looks like most people were like you, too scared to come in here, so we get the spoils"

"Did, you find any of the ammo you were looking for?"

"Around ten mags, enough to last till we make it to Flak and Shrapnel and then some"

"Good"

"Take your share of the goods, I've got to check a couple of things around here" he gestured towards the rest of the parking lot.

"Umm, sure" hearing this the oddly draped man walked a few feet squatted and moved his hand on the floor, right next to a large stain of dried blood, he picked something up, too small to be seen from the distance but it's shape was thin and two inches long at best, he dropped it back to the floor, letting out a metallic clung, he repeated the process of picking and dropping several more times around the same spot though sometimes he had picked up much smaller metallic objects.

Tobias began sorting through the loot, he took a few of the five fifty six magazines which he would sell, all of the thirty two rounds he took for personal use, the rest of the ammunition didn't interest him but his friend might want it, he split the food in half and took his share, loading it up on his two headed bovine.

He turned his attention to the other merchant; he was now standing behind the half circle examining the floor there once more picking up items from the ground but this time keeping them in his hands.

The ox owner sat down and watched as his friend continued to repeat the process for the whole length to the metal wall; the whole process seemed to take no more than several minutes. He then returned to his companion, holding in his hands several types of ammunition.

"I was wrong, or more correctly, Three Dog was wrong" he announced

"Hmm?"

"The Vault kid didn't clear this place" he motioned with his head towards the space around them

"What are you talking about?"

"Look at this" he spilled the content of his hands on the ground right before them; various types of casings, cartridges were on the ground, including some types he had never seen before or at least didn't know what they armed, he turned a puzzled face towards the man.

"Isn't it obvious?"

"That there was a fire fight here?"

"No, look" he pointed at the ammunition at his feet before continuing "I found these all over the place" he pointed over his shoulder towards the vehicles, he pointed at the ten millimeter and five fifty six casings.

"And all around us and inside the building are ten millimeter rounds at the back and five fifty six at the front meaning we know what were the defenders using and we can guess what the offenders were using"

"Ok, so?" inquired the younger trader, the older man sighed.

"Fine I'll simplify it, the Raiders set up the cars this way to form a protective barricade, so they can take cover in case someone actually attacks them" He mused for a second "Pretty well thought for Raiders. Anyway, judging from what I see here, it didn't help them too much, my take is that they were preparing for a full scale attack, and this was obviously more of a 'cloak and dagger' thing. Now, I found the ammo, so we can guess who used what" he pointed at the assault rifle armaments casings.

"The attackers fired from there, there and there" he pointed at three distinct locations on the parking lot "before they charged"

"I also found a bunch of them on the inside meaning they got in"

"And?"

"From the number of misfires on this wall I know that nearly all of their shots hit their marks all the time, that's why there are so few trace marks of them on the wall, meaning whoever did this knew what they were doing, were highly coordinated and trained". Tobias opened his mouth to speak but the other man didn't take notice and continued talking.

"I also found these inside" the large man held out two new types of casings; one was the largest the adolescent had ever seen, as big as microfusion cell only it seemed to have had one end of it sawed off and its content emptied. The other was the smallest type of casing he had ever seen, marginally smaller than the other ten millimeter casing in the man's hand.

"What kind of gun uses that?" he pointed at the large battery.

"I have no idea, but I found it right after the doors so it was either used to break in or right after whoever did this entered"

"The raiders on the other hand, only used some assault rifles but mostly submachine guns, they fired all over the place, like they didn't even know what they were aiming at and where it was, a surprise attack would be my guess, that'd why there are bullets all over the damn place"

"And this helps us, how?" asked the clean cut trader.

"The lone wonderer travels by himself with a dog and another person at best right?"

"Right, so?"

"There's no way he could have done this because there were at least five people here, working as a team, that my friend is power and enough to be reckoned".

"Right" Tobias slowly nodded, looking at the floor; he saw the two pieces of paper and picked them up "You just missed something"

"What?"

"This" he held out the cards he had picked up, two plain game cards with the numbers ten and an ace both spades "One o one" he said.

The older man examined the cards in his hands, looked up into the sky, Tobias heard him draw two quick breathes with his eyes closed; he quickly turned his head to the left looking at a particular spot in the distance, it almost seemed like he was looking at one of the many pieces of the large, bombed out overpass that ran next to the Super Duper Mart.

"We should leave, now" he said not moving his eyes from the same position.

"Right" said Tobias while he was helped up but the other man kept looking at the same place as though there was a hidden treasure there but he at the very least, saw nothing at all.

(S)

He lied motionless; stillness was his ally as much as stealth. This was his third recon duty, and unlike the previous two times he spent his time lying on the hot tarmac that covered what used to be a part of the DC area overpass, something actually happened today.

Any move he'd make might give away his location to his current subjects.

The dawn had already arrived, and began heating his surrounding to its usual scorching temperature, but there was still some time before the sun would warm the asphalt to the point he'd have to leave.

The symbol 'X20' was present at the very bottom of his field of vision, next to it was a constantly shifting spiky line; moving in synchronization with the conversation he was overhearing.

To the right of this line was a tiny flashing red dot indicating that all that he was hearing was being recorded.

At the top left hand side of the display were two additional symbols; one was a heart with the number sixty glowing right next to it, the other was 'BR 20/min'.

"_Perfect statistics for a perfect operator_" he told himself in the confinements of his own mind.

He continued examining the two characters before him; one was a tall, slightly chubby individual dressed as a Bedouin carrying a great deal of firearms on his back along with a large obviously heavy load, an arms dealer of some sort, from the conversation he had picked up it was evident that he was holding in his hand many types of ammunition and explained with great enthusiasm what was their significance.

"_All the missions; and I get stuck with post-action recon_"

The other man, a plain wastelander, maybe a trader if he had to pick by the Brahmin, he seemed to be listening to his companion but was quite evidently bored by the conversation.

At this point, the operative could relate to the trader; listening to someone talk about combat was dull, debriefing was always less interesting than actual combat. In his mind's eye, he toyed with the idea of aligning the crosshairs of his sniper rifle with the trader's head and putting him out of his misery. A grin crept up his lips as the scene unfolded in his mind.

When the other man finished talking, he said a few simple words and handed him two game cards he had found on the ground.

The arms dealer held the two pieces of paper in his hand , yet his gaze was set in a completely different direction, his direction.

A slight shiver ran down the stalker's back; the man was looking right at him, but from such a distance and with the added advantage of his cover and the stealth suit it was far more realistic to say that he was looking through him or on a shady patch of dirt over two hundred meters away.

Both men turned to leave and quickly disappeared behind the side of a hill along with the beast of burden mooing happily, yet the Bedouin eyes remained fixed on his location, until he could see him no more.

After a few minutes of waiting he had allowed himself to move from his position on the overpass; pulling himself along with his form fitting, transparent uniform onto the side of the overpass and from there, climbing down to the desert floor; any onlooker would have just seen a minor rise of tar vapors off the scorching asphalt, the kind you get from looking at tarmac as it heats up.

He sat down on the ground, moving his left forearm to his front; it was covered by a long metal gauntlet, a green screen with numerous signs and symbols on it, a few large red buttons, pointers set to different options a large roller at the side of the screen, he began dabbling with it, a few short moments later he had heard his recording of the conversation which had just taken place before him, making sure that every detail was recorded, for all accounts and purposes, the description of the battle that had taken place there was accurate enough to reenact the slaughter which had taken place there.

"_Good sound quality, no static, not half bad_" he checked the time on his technological marvel, fourteen minutes past six in the morning, he still had eleven minutes before he had to check in with his superiors, this was defiantly going to catch their attention.

He turned around and began walking forward, remaining slightly crouched during the process, he remained invisible as he past the hill he was buried under for the past two nights, he was quite happy that there was something to report back to headquarters even if this event might only lead to an new recruit.


	3. a random encounter, part three

Alright you guys, two chapters and two reviews that's good statistics in my book but I'd like to get a bit more of a feedback from you, what do you want to see more of what less, do you like the characters and the plot so far, in other words I want reviews so I can learn how to make this a better story.

Now you've been waiting for three weeks I recon which is more than what I like to keep people waiting but the powers of thee had twisted my arm into a pretzel so I couldn't help it.

Anyway, without further ado

A Random Encounter, part three

Tobias walked as quickly as he could, trying to catch up to his travel partner; he held a very rapid pace, with the advantage of his added height every pace he took seemed to require three on the shorter man's part just to keep up.

Sid and Tom didn't have any problem keeping with the high speed trekking but rather suffered from a lack of motivation to traverse the land in anything other than their usual walking pace, forcing their owner to pull them by one of the many harnesses usually used to hold goods.

More than once did the larger man stop in his track allowing his companion to catch up to him; the younger merchant noted that whenever one of these stops took place, he heard his companion draw two breathes in quick succession and noticed a slight twitching beneath the man's headdress at the sides of the head.

They had kept this steady pace of walking for a rather long while, the direction where their shadows were casted had changed enough to be noticed, too long for the younger man's sake; droplets of sweat had come together to form a steady stream, running down his face, releasing a spray of salty stains on the ground with every step he took. His side began to ache because of his shallow quick breath and though he didn't know, he had been rather flushed for the past forty five minutes.

The clean cut trader once again stopped as he reached his partner, slightly squatting while bowing his head down, placing both hands on his knees; a long trickle of sweat flowed from the end of his nose down to the hard unyielding earth beneath him, making him feel how badly his throat was dry.

As the black and white draped man began to walk, the brown clad man looked up.

"Hawiya" he called out, the other man didn't pay notice to his companion's words and kept walking.

"Hawiya" he repeated, louder, but he was not answered.

"HAWIYA!" the full figured man stopped and turned around, slightly grinning at him, his head curiously tilted to the side.

"What's wrong man, you've been running ever since the 'mart and haven't said a word?"

"Just making up for lost time, we spent a whole hour there" his companion returned with his everlasting grin.

"Well can we stop for a sec'? I'm thirsty. And slow the fuck down will you? I can't keep up"

The taller man looked at him for a few seconds; he was sure he saw his chest rapidly expand and contract under his clothes, but not from fatigue, his last statement came out slowly, as though he had to force them through his throat.

"Sure, I guess we've covered enough ground to make up for what I made us lose"

Without a second's hesitation, Tobias threw his backpack to the ground, quickly running through its content before finding a plastic bottle filled with clear, clean water; the container was empty of any substance three gulps later.

He looked over to the other man, a camouflaged colored tube drew from over his shoulder to his mouth, at the nozzle was a mouthpiece held tightly by his teeth jetting water into his oral cavity.

"Are you okay?" asked the Nephilim.

"Yeah, just…" he paused for a moment to wipe his brow while taking in a much needed long breath "A bit winded that's all".

"We're close to the wharf, we'll get there soon if we walk at the same pace as we did yesterday"

"That's good" he exhaled, nearly losing his balance and repeated "That's good"

"Speaking of pace, what's up with that killer pace?"

"Someone as knowledgeable as whomever was there, often makes it a habit of proving that lightning can strike twice on the same spot"

"Wha'?"

"Never mind, ready to go?" He nodded, a large hand reached out and aided him in his walk.

A few minutes later, the scenery around them changed from a barren desert to the mostly abandoned wrecks of what once the capital of the land; most of the buildings lied in ruin, all buildings made of wood had long since rotten away into nothing but dust.

All the buildings that stood were made of red and gray cinderblocks, large cracks, missing pieces and conspicuous holes made by war at their sides, debris were scattered on the road; dislocated blocks, chunks of cement and even the odd bone decorated the streets.

For a few moments, both men stood at the edge of the street, still standing on the sand, not daring to tread on the hot tarmac which marked the border of the wasteland and the capitol wasteland. Tobias clenched his gun tightly and held it close to his chest.

On the very edge of the street was an I beam which was driven into the ground, a goat skull hung on top of it and great hooks protruded from the beam's sides, holding a variety of human remains in different state of decomposition; some very fresh.

"Raider country, stick to me and if you can't, stick to the shadows. Stay low and be ready to fight at the drop of a hat, got it?" The adolescent nodded

"Oh, and try to keep Tom and Sid quiet, we don't want them giving us away"

"Lets go" Said Hawiya and all three beings stepped together on the tarmac.

The older man took the lead, walking casually, both hands were at his sides, not even bothering to be anywhere near his weapons, he led the other trader down the main street before turning towards one of its many branches.

He continued walking down the street, disregarding every word of caution he had just given the young man.

Tobias recognized some of the streets they walked, but ever so often Hawiya would, break away from the streets and walk down alleyways the other man had never braved.

Quickly enough he had lost all ability to orient himself, losing sight of any known landmark yet his companion kept a steady pace.

Tobias looked at the ground as they traversed the gap between two buildings, the morning sun had hit him on his left side, casting a shadow to his right.

"Hawiya" he whispered.

"What?" he returned in his normal primal voice

"Why are we headed south when Wilhelm's is to the east?"

"Raider camp down the road, if we keep heading like this and go east, we'll pop up at a safe distance and right next to it"

"Oh"

A few moments later he turned to see the marvelous, radioactive Potomac river stretch out before him, both men and beast hastily rushed forward, reaching the shoreline. To their left was a medium shack, made of scrap pieces of metal, red paint peeled off at some points by the sun gave way to the rusty under layer, and an assortments of solid pieces of wood held together as a board with a fairly long wooden pipe widening at the top end to alarming proportions.

They quickly approached the house and moved to its other side; four tables and twice the amount of chairs greeted them. Tobias took a seat in one of the chairs as the oddly draped man knocked on the door.

"I'm comin', I'm comin'!'" came a hauler from behind the door in an old gravely yet feminine voice. A few steps came from behind the door and the sound of two bolts being moved was heard.

The door creaked open just enough to let Tobias catch a glimpse of the barrel of a hunting rifle peering out the door

"Sparkles, it's me, put the gun away" Hawiya said with both arms raised into the air.

"Boy, am I glad it's you" said the voice, the barrel disappeared and the door was kicked open; and elderly woman dressed with a white pair of pants, a brown hooded long sleeved shirt, a sweater peeked from beneath it at the neckline, a hunting rifle was slung over her shoulder, slightly swaying the fragile old woman. Her cracked face was lit up with a smile and her arms were stretched towards her visitor.

The hulking man bent his knees until he was at her height and pulled the woman into a quick embrace, pecking her on the cheek as he did.

"Ya came at a good time, boy" she told him as they parted, keeping her hands on his shoulders as he rose to his full vertical size "Boys just hunted five 'lurks and two Guais yesterday, all the meat ya can want" looking under his arm she noticed the Brahmin and quickly found its seated owner.

"Who's the kid? A friend of yours?"

"Pretty much" the large man dropped his bag, setting it at attention before punching in a code on the electric board on top of the closed box, cool white fumes erupted from the freshly released pod.

"Just fill that with as much Soft 'lurks meat as you can and some of that Guai you mentioned"

"You know how to charm a lady" she naughtily waved her finger at him and turned back into her shack, vanishing in its shadow.

"And three of the usual if you don't mind!" screamed the giant inside and took his seat with his silent friend "and make one well done".

"What's the usual?"

"Lunch, it's been almost six hours since we last ate"

"And lunch is?" pressed the young trader while the other set the table for both of them.

"Yao Guai Steak, over searing ambers. Hard on the outside but tender on the inside, melts in your mouth like an ice on the pavement, the perfect dish for anyone who dares call himself a man. Twice as good as what we had last night" Tobias swallowed all the drool he had washed his mouth with. Memories of his earlier meal flooded his mind. The sound of the roasting meat sizzling over the hot grill was accompanied by the scent of the meat being cooked.

Sparkles came out of the shack for a moment carrying two large stringed packs of pale flesh and placed it inside the refrigerated container. She repeated the process twice, only on the last trip, a different red pack was stuffed inside the already packed container. She shut the container and disappeared behind the door.

"Food'll be done any second boys" came a shout from inside the metal cabin.

"Get yourself ready for the treat of a lifetime" The large man licked his lips and rubbed his hands in anticipation before grabbing hold of the utensil.

Tobias quickly grabbed his knife, fork and started counting the seconds before the meat would be on his plate.

"Here it comes, boys!" the old woman marched out of the house, balancing two large plates on her hands.

He turned his attention to the plates; one contained a single piece of meat as large as his face, diamond patterns were scorched on its sides, the sound of the meat still sizzling hit his ears as the plate rested before him, his nose was struck by the smell of the burned meat, driving his taste buds to a frenzy, copious amounts of saliva filled his mouth, the meat glistened before him, tempting him to bite.

He looked off his plate to the man before him and pondered if he had the same dumbstruck look on his face.

"Now eat up before it gets cold" a voice trailed off in the back of his head

"_No need to say that again_" ringed in his head, he jabbed his fork into the steak, the jagged blade held in his hand began working feverishly at the meat, with three clean strokes he had carved a mouthful free; dark on the outside pink on the inside.

Hot juices poured onto his tongue as he bit in, breaking through the tough exterior into the softer insides, it felt as though the flesh was melting inside his mouth as butter left outside on a worm summer day, the feeling was ecstatic, he couldn't help but moan in pleasure as he closed his eyes.

"Are you eating your Steak or making love to it?" the other man's voice inquired, he heard him taking anther bit into the marvelous flesh.

"Woth" he let out with his mouth full of meat, every bite seemed to build him up towards ecstasy, rejuvenated him; he felt as though he hadn't just traveled halfway across the wasteland at all, his side had stopped aching and his lungs had stopped burning.

The final bite was so good he wished it would never end, that he had never taken it and kept anticipating it.

He opened his eyes and beheld his companion, eating the remains of his second slab of meat; it had far more color to it, spraying trickles of red boiling blood on his plate and face, wiping the stains off with the back of his hand.

"That was…"

"I know"

The blood covered trader, dug into his oddly matched drapery pulling out a small sack, rattling with the marry jingles of bottle caps. He jerked it twice estimating how much coinage was inside.

"Sparkles!" the tall man hauled in a voice even more feral than his usual self "How much do I owe you? And count the ride in!" he inquired before he started picking his teeth with the blade he had just used to eat

"Gi'mme a sec" a short burst of mumbling could have been heard right outside of the door, consisting of the reciting of various numbers and them being added to one another "Four hundred and ten for the meat and seventy for the ride".

"Then I'm giving you twenty as a tip, it's on the table"

"Bye kids, y'all come back now, y'hear?"

The bearded merchant helped his slightly euphoric, dazed brother of the trade out of his chair, picked up his pack and motioned towards the other side of the house before disappearing behind the side of the shack. The other trader and his pack animal quickly joined him.

The brown clad trader leaned himself on the wooden surface covering the side of the makeshift housing.

"Where's this ride you were talking about?"

"Behind you" he turned around, but all he could see was the large wooden surface, he looked to his left and to his right but saw nothing out of the ordinary.

"I don't see it"

"You're looking straight at it, it's even staring you right in the face"

"_What's he blabbing about?_" he moved his hand over the timber construct, attempting to see what was hiding behind it, but found it was a single constitution.

"It's behind this thing, ain't it?" three wooden knocks were heard as he tapped his fingers joints on the surface.

"Help me with this thing would ya? It looks heavy" Hawiya laughed loudly but never the less stepped forward, stretched both his arms as far as he could; taking hold of the wooden surface from both ends, twisted it and hoisted it over his head.

There was nothing but a solid metal wall behind it.

"I don't get it, I thought you said it was right he…" A loud bang ensued from his right side, he quickly turned, pursuing the source of the noise ; a splash of cold water hit him squarely across the face and he heard the other man's laughing himself into a fit.

On the surface of the water now gracefully floated the large wooden block with about a foot of railing off the sides; its insides were black and shiny, he recognized the material as dried Rad-scorpion blood.

"_A waterproof substance when left to bake in the sun, of course!_" his own hand landed loudly across his forehead.

"Seeing as this is Wilhelm's Wharf, I figured a raft was the most suitable way of crossing the river"

"Your gonna sail us to the other end?"

"More like row" the vertically gifted individual said, taking hold of the long wooden pole with wide ends which were to serve as an oar.

"But what about Sid and Tom?" he motioned towards the beast of burden.

"Don't worry, they get on just like us, as long as you keep them seated they wouldn't even know the difference. Trust me"

"Stupid question, but have you ever done this before? With another man and a Brahmin that is"

"Around five times"

The long wooden paddle dragged the skimpy looking vessel to shore, allowing its owner to come aboard.

"Now get on, we've still got a walk on the other side"

(S)

The wooden vessel gently slided across the poisonous surface of the river, sending ripples that ushered its arrival at new water, they had mostly stayed close to one bank of the great body of water.

Ever so slowly was the oar raised from one side of the floating surface to the other; its edges disappearing several feet beneath the surface of the fluid, its movement evident by the small waves it sent back to the top of the radioactive water before being raised again; releasing a small stream of water which it had dragged over the slightly disturbed surface.

The large oarsman merrily whistled as the vessel rocked from one end to the other his cargo was used as a rather large seat off of which he had moved the sizable paddle from one side of the boat to the other, occasionally he would look up to the sky take two whiffs of the air and return to rowing.

The other man laid in a similar fashion as to how he did the night before; his head rested on top of his two headed beast of burden, one arm one head at a time alternating between one to the other every few movements, his other arm had his rifle, clenched but only slightly, he had gotten over his initial fear of the moving across the body of water without the safety of cover and began enjoying the ride, lazily looking at the other bank.

"So…" came the black and white clad man's voice from his side, he hummed in return.

"Wha'cha gonna do when we get to the city? I mean we'll be getting there a week ahead of your schedule"

"Check in to the Vera's, our caravans have two rooms on constantly rented, so all of our traders can sleep in the city if the need arises"

"I'll also restock at Flack and Shrapnel and spend whatever time I have just mellowing, I'll have two weeks to prep for whatever the brotherhood has planned there, you?" he inquired over the sound of the water sloshing to his sides.

"No wait let me guess, you're going to exchange high risk commodities" he gently rubbed the place where the other man's elbow had connected with him yesterday.

"Pretty much, someone hired me to help point out some tactically sensitive locations and situation for two weeks, all expenses paid, and a hell of a lot of caps at the end of it all"

Tobias's eyes seemed to have caught some kind of movement on the far shore, he squinted his eyes trying to make out what he was looking at, but it was all just too far to be anything other than a blur.

"Say" Came Hawiya's voice once more, he looked at the man's back "What kind of trader are you exactly?" he felt how they had slightly started pushing away from one side of the river to the other.

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean what kind of cargo do you carry?"

"I'm a bit of a jack of all trades" Tobias replied "guns, armor, robot parts, food, medicine, and some more exotic items when I manage to get them" he counted his types of commodities on the fingers of one hand continuing on the other.

"Care to give me an example?" He ran the question for a few seconds in his mind, trying to see where this conversation was leading before coming to a decision.

"My last job at Big Town, sold them pistols, mines, grenades, stealth boys, robot parts and some meds, made three thousand caps"

"How much did it all cost you?"

"Around twenty five hundred"

"Not much of a profit there"

The younger man felt a twinge of anger for a second at the underlying accusation of being a bad trader, he returned his gaze to the other bank where he saw that the movement he had spotted earlier had persisted, though now that they were slightly closer, he could tell that there was a large green mass quivering in place.

"They know they got a fair price and good merchandise, they'll turn to me as long as I keep that up"

"Do you apply that logic to all of your customers?"

"Yeah" he began rummaging in his backpack for his binoculars.

"Remember I told you I'd test you to see if you were the type of trader my clients were looking for?"

"Vaguely"

"Well, you just passed the first half of the test" he looked back to the other man who kept looking forward, hiding his face.

"What? When?" he blurted out still feeling in his bag for the vision amplification device, but it was nowhere to be found.

"A fair and honest trader, I don't think you lied to me about the way you conduct your businesses, but now comes the hard part"

"Which is?"

"Show me your silver tongue, show me you can get my customers whatever they ask you to by trading and not by force, convince me I should choose you by bartering me into doing something you'd rather I not do"

"Like what? Have you seen my binoculars by the way?" he caught a glimpse of the other man's hand launch something into the sky before it landed in his lap; his own binoculars.

"When did you…"

"While you were pulling Tom and Sid onto the raft, care to see what's on the other side that's been keeping you so occupied?" the other man half asked half requested.

He pressed the flexible plastic against his eye sockets adjusting the lenses.

"HELP ME!" came a distant cry from the other shoreline.

"Saint Monica in the heavens"

He counted three green bald hulks of different sizes, their muscular extremities had shown their many blood vessels, wearing different types of armor, holding a variety of weapons, he counted one with a minigun, another with an assault rifle similar to the one his companion possessed, the last wielding a long plank with barb wire wrapped around its end.

All three beings were huddled over a lone woman on her knees wearing nothing but a brown overall and a white shirt, her screams of horror pierced his ears even at the distance, thick rope held her arms clasped to her body, one of the mutants grabbed her by the hair and threw her into the ground, placing his foot which was as large as her fragile back on top of her, now pressing the woman to the ground as one of the other meta-humans began tying her hands behind her back.

"We've got to save her!" he cried at once, aiming his rifle at the mass before noticing he was located at too great a distance for him to pull off a shot with any prospect of success.

"Really?"

The wooden vessel came to a stop, the other man placed the great poll of wood he had used to navigate on the raft, turned around, crossed his legs and placed both his hands on his top knee.

"Have you failed to notice that there are two of them and only one of us capable of returning fire?"

"But.." Hawiya raised a hand to silence him.

"Did you not realize that we are in fact stranded with no prospect of cover around us, that they are better armed than we are, that a single hit to the side of this floating piece of timber would send us sinking into the radioactive waters and into certain death"

"Err.."

"I can save her, but now that you know the risks it's you task to make me save her with the rifle you're holding, you have until they get away with her to convince me, good luck" The constant grin on his face made the situation look even more grim then it was before.

"YOU'RE INSANE!" He shouted at him, but nothing about the man changed except that his grin seemed to widen.

"Clock's ticking" he tapped his own wrist with two fingers

"_Fuck, fuck!" _He cursed inwardly_ "how did I get into this mess_?"

Thoughts were racing through his brain at a staggering rate, he began to sweat from the sheer pressure of the situation before he even realized it he was lost in his own thoughts.

"PLEASE ANYBODY, HELP!" he was thrown back into reality

"It might help if you calm down and think about it"

He bit down on his own lip, turned towards the seated man, throwing his rifle at the smiling face out of sheer frustration, to his surprise it was met with both hands gripping it tightly.

"You're doing much better than the other five"

"Now that you've got me to hold your gun, just make me fire it"

He used the vision aids once more; one of the green giants, the one which had previously sported a rifle had now slung the woman over his shoulder along with his rifle, his curled lips exposed his teeth as his chest rapidly rose and fell at the woman's pleas for mercy, he could hear their laughter in his head but not with his ears.

"You say you can so do it, so why not just do it, if I'm going to convince you anyway"

"_I can't believe I'm playing this psycho's game_"

"Nice try, but that would be self-defeating. What matters here is the journey, not the destination"

"I bet you can't really do it, you're just pretending"

"Hurting the other man's ego isn't the best way to convince him to trade with you, try again" The grinning maniac pulled the magazine out of the rifle and pressed down on the bullets, checking if the container was full.

Tears began flooding Tobias's eyes as he thought of his comeback, his vision turned blurry, he pressed the binoculars against his eyes once more and turned back to the hostile group to hide his emotions

"Then what about your conscience, how will you sleep tonight, knowing that a child somewhere out on the wastes will die starving because you let his mother die" he said in a chocked up voice; a single tear escaped its confinement.

"In case you haven't noticed, I killed four people yesterday; one of them was pregnant and probably didn't even know it yet"

"I'll pay you man, five hundred caps the head"

"Is that how you bargain? Offering the other trader more money, you must really suck at you job or have far too many caps, trader king"

Tobias turned his gaze slightly to the left, they had another twenty meters before they'd reach a corner they could vanish behind, he lowered the binoculars and turned his now puffy red eyes at the other man's face, he noticed a series of ripples surrounding the raft in the distance, what seemed like the end of a fin surfaced around them and submerged a second later.

"You know what they do to the people, right? They turn them into super mutants like them, how can you let an innocent woman become that?"

Hawiya's grin widened.

"Good direction, but what does one more or one less matter?"

"It matters to this one!" he cried out at the man

"So? What does that matter to me?"

"_This is nothing but a game to him isn't it, a trade with her life in the thick of it_, _wait that's it_"

"If she becomes one, she'll turn more, break the chain man, you can stop it here"

"Bingo, now I gain something by doing it and you loss nothing but a single round"

"YES!" He shouted with victory, when a confusing thought struck him "What? But there're three Muties!"

The black and white Nephilim got up from his seat, one hand holding the old hunting rifle, the other the nuka-cola bottle from yesterday. Only now he noticed that the dark color was in fact red, leaving residue on the ends of the bottle.

The titan casually stepped forward and turned towards the green mass with his left leg placed a few feet in front of him at shoulder width.

"And I just need to end her suffering and you get the contract"

"If you kill her, I won't take the contract!" Tobias threatened, Hawiya only laughed

"And now you have leverage over me, excellent!" The large man's legs seemed to crumble under his own weight as he dropped to the floor, yet stayed on both his feet; his left hand held the wooden barrel of the firearm, his forearm rested against the magazine and the matching elbow rested behind his squatted knee yet remained firmly dug into his thigh's flesh, his whole body sat down on his bent right foot while his right hand flung the glass container forward into the air in a wide arch.

Tobias quickly turned back to the super mutants and their captive, they were merely a meter away from the corner of the building he had spotted earlier.

"Shot of a lifetime" he heard the other man say right before he squeezed the trigger.

The shot rang out; ripping past the shouts of the human, over the laughter of the mutants, at the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of the crimson beverage exploding at eye level into a red mist that descended onto the water.

Through his binoculars he saw the largest of the green skinned meta-humans; wearing nothing but a short skirt over its privates and a metal piece as a shoulder guard.

The beast dropped to the floor; its hands tightly gripping the minigun, setting it off as it had hit the ground, dozens of bullets flew into the air before it, the head of the monster had erupted in a déjà of red fog that cascaded to the ground, a bloody rain with a hail of brain matter and skull fragments.

The second largest mutant, carrying the barbed piece of timber sprawled over the fresh corpse of its comrade, pinning it and the raging heavy firearm beneath it to the ground, Tobias saw its hand vanish beneath the cadaver right before the five millimeter projectile launching machine ceased firing. It got back onto its iron clad feet; pulling off the archaic fighter pilot helmet off its head when he realized it was blocking his field of vision, his black corset which was covered with metal tubes was covered in dirt it had picked up from the ground. He began looking for the source of his comrade's demise.

Both hulks shouted at each other at the same time, their voices indistinguishable from one another, created an endless flow of incomprehensible jitter.

The smallest super mutant, while still carrying his hostage, seemed to have spotted the flouting duo, pointed them out to his comrade.

Tobias made out the sound of a bolt being opened and locked once more in such a quick succession that they were inseparable, the metallic clung of a casing hitting the wooden surface echoed in his mind right before the next shot was heard.

The elbow of the muscular arm holding the woman captive blew off; all that remained of the joint was a small flab of skin holding the two chunks of flesh together. The human rolled to the side, moving the massive forearm which held her in place as though it were nothing but paper, dropping to the ground.

The green skinned beast shouted in anger and cried in pain, its still functioning arm shot off, reaching for the slung weapon.

Another unbelievably quick opening and closing of the rifle's bolt was barely heard. The sound of the third slug sent flying muffled the sound of the copper cartage hitting the ground.

The shot had pierced through the mutant's hand as it went over its face in an attempt to reach his rifle; as the body of the giant fell to the ground on its knees, its hand jerked, revealing a gaping hole where the beast's left eye once was, a trail of thick mushy red goo with grey coating oozed out.

The final green monster once more sprawled to the ground with a primal grunt, vanishing behind the rocks that hid the fresh corpse of his second comrade, appearing a moment later holding the very same R91 assault rifle his companion had brandished.

Before he even had the time to take his aim, the weapon fell apart as a precise shot to the firing mechanism broke the weapon.

The mutant held the two chunks of metal in his hands, taking in the sight which was his own demise; it sprinted as fast as it could towards the building's corner, vanishing out of sight unharmed as one final shot rang through the air hitting nowhere near him.

"You missed"

"You're looking at the wrong target, check the chick" The adolescent shifted his eyes towards the woman lying on the ground; she was still, her hands were at the side of her body, a small trickle of blood flowed from the side of her head.

"You bastard, you said you wouldn't kill her!" he swung his leg forward; aiming for the crouched man's chin only to lose his balance as his kick missed its target whom rolled backwards into a handstand and using his own momentum to flip himself back on his feet.

Tobias, due to his lost balance, rather comically fell to the ground flat on his bottom.

"Check again" he pointed at the distant shoreline.

One final time the young trader pressed the flexible plastic against his face. His heart had leapt at the sight; the woman now stood up, both her arms were free as were her hands, a small piece of the top of her left ear was missing; the source of the blood he had seen moments ago.

The woman scanned her surroundings for her rescue but could not see them.

"HEY, OVER HERE!" He shouted at her waving his arm wildly while holding the binoculars with the other a few seconds later she had spotted the two men and waved back.

"THANK YOU!" her voice had settled down from her previous state of hysteria.

"NO PROBLEM, STAY SAFE!"

He lowered the vision aids, he couldn't see her anymore.

"THANK YOU!" he heard again. He managed to discern her moving along the side of the bank, away from where the mutant had vanished.

Something at the bottom of his field of vision caught his attention; the waters a few yards before him raged and gushed wildly, he saw pinchers snapping at each other, a smooth, shiny, curved surface that broke the surface if the water for a second.

He stared into the bloodied foam for a few seconds before opening his mouth to ask a burning question, but his anger got the better of his curiously so he did not inquire of anything.

"Mirelurks, the blood that splashed there keeps them busy and away from us" said the other man, guessing his companion's thoughts "We need to keep moving before they figure out that we're the only food in the water" he continued.

The old timber, bolt action rifle landed of the wooden surface with a muffled thud at the young man's feet who just looked down upon it.

"_I had had it in these hands for years_" he thought to himself," _Fired it countless times and couldn't hit anything at a distance greater than ninety feet away, at best_"

"_This guy holds same weapon for the first time in his life and managed to hit something at five times that distance, not once but four times!_" the words reverb under the cowboy hat on his head, somewhere in the confines of his mind his consciousness registered that they had once again began moving.

"By the way, I owe you four rounds"

The sound of water dripping off the oar back into the river was heard again, only being interrupted as the device moved over the raft from one side to the other; they continued their water excursion to the other shore without exchanging another word, the woman they had just rescued followed them as they sailed.


	4. a random encounter part four

**Alright you guys, I'm back! A month to cool my head, get working on the following chapters and get some RNR or drive myself up the wall at work but hey that's life for you. Anyway I feel like I have to say sorry to anybody whom had waited for this to come out.**

**Sorry guys I had a lot on my mind but I've procrastinated this so much that it just took a bite out of me (the left pinky if you're wondering) so here it is and I hope you enjoy our dues adventure. **

A Random Encounter, part four

A half an hour later the sun was situated at the highest point of its daily route in the sky, the navel transport had reached its destination; the waves had helped guide them to shore while the nephilim's arms steadied their approach, guiding them to a patch of sand free of any rocks that might damage their means of transportation.

The large man leapt out of the raft as soon as the timber had hit the gravely surface; right before the shore and began tugging at the wood while walking towards the beach, pulling the transit deeper onto land and out of the water.

Tobias placed a hand on one of the two headed bovine horns, lightly pulling it; the Brahmin understood the gesture and got up on its feet.

"So how did you like your first boat ride, kids, huh?" he patted one of the heads lightly with his palm which in return mooed with what he took as great joy "That's good to hear, now we're almost at the city, so behave and you'll be in for a treat, alright boys?" the animal followed him onto the soft sand; looking around him, he noted the top of a dome shaped building in the distance; the Jefferson memorial.

"_Exactly where he said we'd be, so he planned all of this from the get go_"

Even at the short distance he was from the cool water he had just left, the might of the sun pounded away at his head causing it to ache, the urge he had not felt since they had left the wharf had returned with a vengeance; he felt his throat was dry and became aware that his lips were chipped as well. He quickly searched his bag for another container of water to gulp down.

"We'll be leaving soon" his partner told him right before he finished the last few drops of the precious fluid.

"I don't make it a habit of listening to psychos" he spat at him, throwing the plastic flask onto the sand.

"What are you going on about? For a man who's just been selected for the lucrative amounts of cash you're about to handle, you don't seem too pleased"

"The journey.. is not.. more important.. than.. human LIFE!" he poked an accusing finger into the giant's chest with every word that he said, not minding that he was in fact prodding him at his own eye level.

"What have you got to complain about?" the bearded man crossed his arms on his chest "You were safe the whole time, never in any danger" Tobias's rage gushed as though he were a pot over Sparkle's stove.

"And what about her, hmm?" he barked at the disheveled person "Was she safe or did you plainly not care?"

Hawiya pinched the bridge of his own nose, closed his eyes while looking at his feet and sighed.

"Not the most perceptive character, now are you but, I guess I should have expected that from you"

"What in the hell are you blabbing on about?"

"Didn't you hear my say I already did this five times before?"

"That was about the ride!"

"No, it was about the rescue" the hulk ever so kindly explained "Hell, three out of the other five didn't even get that far and I had to save the poor souls while they turned back and ran away from the raiders, Yao Guai and mercs"

"YOU WERE GOING TO LET HER DIE IF I WOULDN'T HAVE SOLVED YOUR PUZZLE!" he cried out, tears soaking his eyes and shirt.

"No, if you would have taken a few more seconds, I would have saved her anyway only difference is you wouldn't have gotten the contract"

"WITH WHAT? YOU DON'T HAVE A RIFLE YOU CAN USE AND YOU WOULDN'T HAVE IF I HADN'T THROWN MINE AT YOU!"

"This" the chubby individual returned coolly, grinning as usual, his hand pulled the large handgun held by his belt; skidding the drum over his shirt.

The forty four magnum had a metal cylinder running on its top; a sight similar to that of a sniper rifle, only much smaller in scale, the drum had stopped rolling, leaving the six bullets stationary.

"Good for twice the distance" Tobias turned red from anger as the blood rushed to his head.

"_He could have saved her a thousand times over but wanted me to MAKE HIM!_" he clenched his right hand; his nails dug into his own skin.

"So you would have done it anyway?"

"Yep"

Tobias threw the fist forward as fast as he could, seemingly catching the other man by surprise; his knuckles connected with the man's full stomach.

A metallic clung was heard; two metal surfaces had bumped into one another, the young man's hand throbbed with pain; he hadn't connected with the layers of fat he had expected, but with some kind of hard metal surface.

"What the hell?" he held his own hand and watched as the knuckles of his middle and ring finger turned red and swollen.

"I hope you're not fighting over me" A soft voice met his ears; a tiny trace of Chinese accent could be discerned in the tone.

He looked over to the left, over a pile of rubble stood a Chinese woman; her head was covered with a piece of cloth wrapped as a tarbush, her white shirt was covered with light brown patches of dirt, especially across the chest, a pair of brown pants wrapped her legs with a tiny splash of blood over her left thigh, a portion of the top of her left ear was missing; dripping blood over her shirt.

"Hey Mie, how are ya?" Hawiya asked the woman, not bothered at all by the blow he had taken to the stomach.

"Same old, same old, another day scavenging, getting captured by muties, and saved by a pair of knights with a rifle"

"What happen to that nice little six shooter you carry?" the albino inquired.

"Hardly put a scratch on those idiots armor" the former slave skidded down the pile of rocks and stood next to the two men; she looked at the adolescent for a second before turning to the other.

"And they kind of got the drop on me, so I could only get two shots out of it before I was on the ground"

"Who's he?" she motioned her head towards youngest individual.

"The guy who saved your life, but you can call him Tobias"

"_What is he going on about_" ran through the clean cut trader's head

"What are you talking about, even at that distance I could tell it was you holding the gun"

"Yeah but he was the one who noticed you were in trouble and he gave me the rifle to help you"

"Well then" the scavenger turned herself towards the youth "I guess I owe you one Tobi"

"You should be thanking him, he did the shooting" he returned shyly turning away to tend for his beast of burden "and please, don't call me that"

"Yeah ok, but I owe him one anyway"

"Would you two like to stay and chat or can we get going towards the city?"

The group had started walking in a slow, steady pace towards the city, Hawiya insisting that they allow Mie to lead them, citing that as she knew the roads best she could get them there faster.

"I'm still not talking to you" the young man whispered to the older as they walked, making sure their rescued companion was out of earshot "You can't play with people's lives like that, no matter how good of a shot you are or how badly you want to test someone, you're not a god, things could have gone wrong"

"Then how about you listen, I needed to make sure that you can actually barter, my clients can get whatever they want by force, but refuse to afford the enemies, they have enough of those as it is"

"So they need a proxy whom they can trust, someone who won't attract too much attention when he gets them the things they need; a trader"

"And that gives you the right to play with people's lives like that? What would you have done if I wouldn't have noticed her, just let her get carried away?"

"Of course not, I'm not that kind of monster"

"Well I think you are"

"Look the end game is this, we're all alive and mostly unscratched" the brown clad trader once more felt how his knuckles throbbed with pain "she's happy thinking you saved her life, you get to walk with your conscience clean, now the only question left is are you going to take the contract and make it all worthwhile for the both of us or say no, meaning that it was all worthless"

Tobias looked onwards at the woman's back; the handle of her handgun stuck out from behind her belt, he kept walking, keeping his lips sealed as he did, thoughts raced through his head like the bullets from not so long ago; arguments both for and against working for Hawiya's mysterious employers, logic stated that he'd take what seemed to be a very lucrative offer, but his own mind told him that working for someone who employs someone this dangerous and cold might not be in his best of interests.

"Fine, I'll let you figure yourself out, but do make up your mind before I leave the city"

"Screw you" the larger man sighed.

The younger merchant heard him draw another set of two quick breathes before he looked up.

"Mie, it's ok, I can take it from here, how about you hang back here with the kid?" the black and white clad man asked.

"Sure" both of them traded places only the larger man led them with a few meters to spare.

Tobias looked at him, making sure he was well out of hearing range.

"So, Mie was it?"

"Yeah"

"How did you meet Hawiya?"

"Helped me out of a troublesome situation once and taught me how to use this" she brandished her firearm, spun it around her finger and holstered it.

"Yeah, about that, you said you owe him one, what's that about?" he inquired, the woman looked at him for a moment, a suspicious look on her face, she decided he was trustworthy.

"About six months ago" she started "I barely escaped from my former master, just got into D.C from the Temple of Union but couldn't get into the city" she noticed his inquiring gaze "Too many muties" she added.

"He shows up, says he's headed there anyway and that he'd like the company so he'd help me"

"And you just walked with him"

"I'd hardly call it walk, more like shivered, every person that I didn't know looked like a slaver to me, and someone being so generous to a total stranger just struck me as either a slaver or a psycho"

"_If she only knew_"

"But he got us through D.C without running into anything, not even a feral, so I was grateful and we parted at the city gates"

"Uh huh"

"I got my gun from the kid from the vault when a slaver showed up around a week after I got there, he was around your age, the vault kid that is. Now, I was sure the slaver was after me, completely paranoid even though he kept looking for this high tech robot man"

"Right"

"Anyway, Hawiya was still staying in the city, doing some work for Megaton, now this is two months after I got there and Sister"

"Who?"

"The slaver, he was getting low on caps so he starts looking for a way to make some fast because his search wasn't going all that well"

"I was getting along with helping Christie's clean ups, not the best paying job in the city but I got by"

"So one day at the end of my shift, he walks up to me, Bethaka, and asks me for a nightcap at the Muddy Rudder"

"After a couple of shots, we get to his room and I was sure he was going to try and make a move on me, but he didn't and we only talked until three in the morning"

"Ok"

"I wanted to go back to the common room, he offered to escort me, something which I'm still thankful for"

"Why, what happen?"

"That part was a bit hazy but I remember most of it now"

"While we were walking back, Sister walked up to me, tried putting a knife to my throat and a slave collar to boot, now I saw him coming and took a couple of shots at him, didn't even graze him"

"So how are you still here?"

"That's the thing, Hawiya got in between us, told Sister something along the lines of 'get lost before you hurt yourself'" she mimicked the man's rough voice "and the idiot tried stabbing him"

"He got him by the arm, made him slash his own face wide open" she moved a finger from the top left hand side of her face down to her chin.

"Twisted his arm so bad he broke it in three places when he was done, by then security got there after hearing the shots, the doc said Sister won't ever be able to move his hand or hold anything bigger than a teddy bear"

"If that wasn't enough, he tells me that for a hundred caps, he'd teach me how to fire a gun"

"I'm guessing that didn't go too well for you" he jested remembering their recent rescue.

"Bullshit, best caps I spent in my whole life, last month, I took second place in a shooting competition, the only one who could beat me was the chief of security and he has a plasma rifle"

"So how come you needed a knight with shinning bullets?"

"Because there were FIVE muties to begin with, got two of them in the head, asshole" the former slave spat and quickened her pace, putting a few feet between herself and Tobias, soon after he could see top turret of the aircraft carrier.

They squeezed into a passageway; not wider than ten feet, one wall was made up of rocks piled up against one another, the other by buildings with pillars of automobiles sandwiched between the solid brick constructs.

As the tiny caravan advanced through the artificial bottleneck, Tobias noticed that Hawiya didn't focus on the path ahead of them but rather on the constructs to their left, just as they were about to move next to the pile of cars between the two buildings did the other man raise his right hand as a clenched fist, motioning them all to stop.

The young man complied though he didn't like it, but Mie was obviously still too emotional to notice; she walked straight past the hulking individual, passing right under his raised arm to both men's surprise.

"MIE NO!" the giant's raised white draped arm and shot forward, taking hold of the back of the woman's shirt as a tremendous creaking erupted to their left.

The former slave was tossed back onto the rough dirt road at Tobias's feet as though she was nothing but a rag doll, he looked down at her and was about to reach out and help her up when a terrible brutish cry erupted from behind the pillar of automobiles as the heap of metal crashed ; the cars that were so neatly packed one on top another had tumbled forward, right on the spot Mie had stood mere moments ago.

A cloud of dust shot up into the air, Hawiya was momentarily swallowed up in it before he took a step back reappearing.

"Get back, now!" the man leading the caravan ordered, dropping his cargo off his back.

"YOU KILLED BROTHERS, I WILL WEAR YOUR BONES HUMAN!" came a primal, rough cry from within the towering cloud of dust, a second later, a giant green hulk erupted out of the smoke, lunging at the group; its bald head was clear without the pilot helmet that covered it a mere hour ago, the black corset holding the metal pipes draping his torso was still stained with patches of dried blood and dirt.

Its hands shot down from over the its head, the wooden board coated with barb wire which they grasped came down with them.

Tobias managed to see a white flare shooting up from Hawiya's torso; hitting the piece of timber head on, just under the gray metal. A loud cracking came from the point of impact as the wood snapped in two, sending the razor edged cable to land at the adolescent's feet.

The super mutant didn't register his weapon was broken until it had passed harmlessly in front of its target's face.

Hawiya half balled his right palm and crashed it down on the bewildered meta-human's chest on the left side; another cracking sound, as loud as a gunshot blew out, the mutant screamed in agony, his other hand shooting for the point of impact as he dropped to his knees, holding his left collarbone.

The monster's eyes were blood shot, its cries filled the air with terror, Hawiya took another step back, putting distance between him and his attacker.

Tobias saw the black and white clad man's hand move from the side of his body disappearing behind his large waist.

A moment later he had heard a series of two, maybe three small clicking sounds; a revolver's hammer being pulled back.

The trader held the firearm before him and examined it for a few seconds as though contemplating his own choice of weaponry.

The green hulk used the fleeting momentary distraction; summoning all the strength that he could while the pain pulsed throughout his left side, a cry of pain emanated from the beast's mouth as it pulled one of its feet from under itself leaning forward; preparing for an attempt to tackle the man to the ground.

Without looking away from the firearm, the titan's foot was launched forward; the ball of the boot covered foot connecting with the green hulks bent knee, pushing it under him to a sprawled position.

The Meta human completely lost what little balance it had left, planting its face in the ground, it's single functioning hand which had been stuck under its enormous torso began pushing it off the ground, grunting all the while.

A large black leather covered foot planted the super mutant's body back to the ground; Hawiya had pressed his foot on the mutant's spine while turning his body a semi-circle.

Facing his own comrades, yet not looking at them, he pointed the barrel of the handgun at the back of the being's green head; no expression draped his face, his everlasting grin barely discernable.

The lone gunshot boomed through the silence of the area; blood and brain matter jumped up into the air from the fresh wound, the mutant had stopped trying to get up.

The winning combatant flipped the corpse of his fallen adversary with his foot and observed it for a second; another quick motion returned the weapon back to its holster and the remaining titan turned to his comrades.

"Is everybody ok?"

"Yeah" they both said simultaneously.

"Just a bit shaken up" finished the young trader helping the woman back onto her feet, looking at the broken piece of timber next to him, the former slave walked to the corpse of the mutant.

"How did…" Tobias found himself at a loss of words, once more stammering his statements.

"How did you know he was there? How did the plank break?"

"It's been following us ever since we landed, it was just a question of when would it attack, as for the board" he raised his right hand across his chest; the second joints of three of his fingers had turned slightly red, reminding Tobias of his own aching knuckles.

"Hey Hawiya, I think it's still alive, it's still moving" shouted Mie over the body of the defeated being, the man turned towards her and observed the corpse; it's legs moving in random.

"It's dead, those are just post-mortem spaz.." the gunshot cut his sentence short; hot blood splashed over the woman's body as the mutant's head exploded, she fell back on her arms from surprise, Tobias knew he wouldn't miss a shot at this range.

"ARE YOU RETARDED?" the woman screamed at him getting back on her feet "You could have hit me!" she charged at the shooter

"Mie, relax, I'm sure he was just making sure.." the large man had stepped in between them, completely shielding them from one another.

"THAT WHAT? YOU NEED TWO BULLETS IN THE HEAD TO KILL A MUTIE?"

"You better hope you can keep his ass in line or else I'll put a bullet in his head myself" Mie hissed.

"I'll make sure of it" he assured her, the woman walked away from the two, directly to the end of the passageway.

"I'LL SEE YOU IN THE CITY!" she shouted at the two and stormed off.

Hawiya turned to his companion

"What was that about?"

"What, I just finished the job you didn't"

"It was dead, anything that takes a shot to the head is dead"

"Then I just made sure that mother killer stopped moving"

"You could have killed Mie" the tall man reprimanded

"So? You could have gotten us all killed with your macho attitude" the young trader returned

"What are you blowing hot air over?"

"That whole get up routine you did, it was down on the ground, you could have pulled your gun out and ended it with a bullet to the head"

"But now you had to show how good you are, look at your gun, kick the damn thing to the ground and ceremoniously execute it"

"There's a difference"

"And what's that hmm? How could you tell it didn't have any friends that would come to his help, you would have been shot and we were both as good as dead"

"That's a trade secret"

He replied mysteriously, hoisting his large pack onto his back.

"What's that suppose to mean? And what about shooting her, last I checked, you took a chunk of her ear off. I just splashed some blood on her"

"It means that's for me to know and you had better hope you'd never to find out" he took a long breath before continuing

"Also, I don't want to diss you, but your shooting needs plenty of work done before anyone would trust you to shoot something that close to them"

The large man started following the trail left by the woman, stepping over the row of cars.

"AND YOU THEY TRUST?" he shouted at the departing man.

"I earned it" the titan shoot back "end of discussion. Now come on, we've got a boat to catch"

Tobias pushed his Brahmin over onto one of the fallen cars which had turned over during their collapse, he considered himself lucky; leading one of the two headed bovines into and out of a normal car could have been a nightmare.

A few minutes later, both men and beast had the city in their sights, they had truly reached the city a week ahead of schedule, the only question now was at what cost?

**Right well that's it for the "A random encounter" saga next comes "the art of defense" where you'll get to see a lot of familiar faces, though some not in the way you're used to.**

**Again sorry for the long wait, but I think that I'll need a couple of weeks to finish up on the next set of chapters so in the meantime, courtesy of the quality assurance team AKA the troll that lives in the basement, we'll be presenting you with a bonus content chapter.**

**Bye everyone see you next time **


	5. Smash n' dash

**Super Duper Mart Combat**

**-TOP SECRET-**

Mission Archive- File Code 677943ANF-X  
>Classification: <strong>CLASS 9 Need to Know Bases ONLY<br>**Mission Code: 117  
>Operation: Smash n' Dash<p>

Location: Pre-War Shopping Center. AKA- Super Duper Mart, Raider territory.  
>Objective(prm): Search Super Duper Mart and surrounding area for any evidence of Nuclear munitions<br>Objective(prm): Secure any Nuclear munitions found and return to Base of Operations  
>Objective(sec): Clear Super Duper Mart of any Raider opposition<p>

Rules of Engagement: Obsidian. Destroy any threat to the mission with extreme prejudice.

Time: 0047

The moonlight was barely visible through the thick clouds, dull white light was shining on the large, pre-war shopping center. Before the bombs fell, this place could have been the heart of a vibrant city, or maybe just another spot on the road for people to restock on food and drinks.

And then the bombs fell.

Super Duper Mart was surrounded by miles upon miles of desolate wasteland and sand dunes, towering over them like a gloom monument of life before the nuclear fire that rained down from the sky. Nowadays, the complex was occupied by Raiders, foul criminals who live off the weak, take what they can and burn the rest. Being occupied by such notorious outlaws, the Super Duper Mart was known around the wasteland as a place surrounded by death.

"Sniper team, what's your position?"

"Ready and waiting" came back a crisp voice through the soldier's comm. Link. The soldier, armed with a high caliber sniper rifle was part of a two-man team that took cover inside one of the Bombed out pieces of highway- The overpasses that overlooked the shopping complex.

Only a person equipped with high-tech imaging equipment would be able to spot him and his friend in their positions. The sniper and his teammate crossed the Potomac river earlier that evening, using the twisting shadows of the sun as it gave birth to twilight to cover their advancement. They have been in the same position, lying flat on their stomachs for six hours, taking out their sniper rifles only a few short hours ago, to make sure their cover was kept.

"Assault team within striking distance" The first voice announced and continued "Sniper One, give me a sit-rep"

"E.M is negative for trip wires and mines" A third voice replied while the sniper observed the green painted world his Night Vision sight provided him with. "Two spotters on the roof, both are taking a smoke break, three more patrolling the perimeter, and…" He chuckled, which sounded almost mechanic over the comm. Channel

"They left the front door open"

"Roger that" the first voice said "Sniper team, you are to eliminate all outside forces, beginning with the two spotters on my mark. Once all outside forces have been dispatched, you will join us and clear the building"

He checked his assault rifle and secured his grip on it

"Assault team, check your energy, we're going in dark"

He rose to a crouched position

"Move out"

Three figures rose from their shadowy cover on the other side of the Potomac. They were all in average height, draped in dark matt, form fitting body armor and night vision goggles. Each of them was holding an assault rifle with a laser sight attachment and a small backpack that seemed to be integrated into the armor itself.

They reached the river's bank and as if on que, holstered their weapons and jumped in the cold, radioactive stream of the Potomac. Underwater, the team leader observed his two squad mates; both were in perfect formation, swimming behind him and to his sides to form an imaginary triangle to maximize firepower as soon as they emerged from the water. Below him, he spotted a duo of Mirelurks, squabbling over a piece of tire they were able to strip off one of the many sunken cars located on the bottom of the river, as the trio passed over them, the two animals paused and observed the three strange creatures passing overhead, deciding they were not hostile and pusruing their fight over the tire.

"_good_" The leader thought "_Would've been a complete wasted of ammo_"

It didn't take too long for them to cross over to the other bank, just as they timed it. The leader climbed out first, unholstering his weapon and keeping it in a perfect firing stance as he and his two squad mates continued their advancement towards the parking lot.

As soon as their feet touched the black tarmac, the three men vanished from sight, even as the dull moonlight was shining directly at them, the light-bending qualities of their Stealth Armor proved itself once again.

They continued to advance, now kneeling near the skeletons of burnt out cars that were arranged into the shape of a crescent, one of the men wondered if this was random, or did the Raiders actually arrange the cars in a way that will provide them with cover if the needed to defend their home

"Sniper team" the first voice crackled "Sit rep"

"Snipers one and two" The mechanical voice responded "Sights are hot"

One of the men peeked through a window of the car's skeleton, the front doors were in fact open.

"Mark."

The night's silence was pierced by two loud gunshots, fired in such synch they sounded like a single large explosion. The two high caliber rounds met their marks with deadly accuracy- the first spotter's head jerked upwards as the bullet pierced the back of his head and left through his mouth, shooting out his cigarette, followed by a jet of blood and teeth, his friend was greeted by death as the bullet penetrated his left temple, exploding through his right cheekbone in a spray of gore.

Down on the ground, the patrol members were alerted by the noise and rushed to the front, only to be greeted by a second salvo of gunfire that reaped two more men. The remaining two began running towards their makeshift cover while giving off random bursts of fire with their sub-machineguns, firing blindly into the darkness that killed their comrades.

"Strike team, move"

The three men climbed over the cars and rushed directly towards the open doors, directly towards the two Raiders. The remaining raiders who were observing the scene from inside the complex were confused by the sight of their friends stopping in mid-run and dropping dead with blood shooting out of their backs in a spray of red as the team leader's two squad mates opened fire.

"Holy shit!" One of the Raiders, sporting a mohawk and a fire axe yelled "Close those fuckin' doors, they got stealth!"

The team was forced to split off, the leader going right along with another member of the team as the Raiders did what they have obviously parcticing for a long time; the two glass doors were slowly closed by some of them, while the rest were laying down a hailstorm of firepower through the slowly closing gap.

As the three men reached the stone walls, the two heavy doors were already closed, though supposed to be transperant, the glass composing them was spray painted over many times, creating a mess of drawings and cuss words. A last burst of 10mm rounds broke holes in the heavy glass, proving to the three men that shooting through the glass would be just spraying blindly, very much like the raiders inside were doing.

"Sniper team" The leader's voice crackled "Got targets on thermal?"

"Negative, too many heat signatures, can't make out a target" One of the snipers replied while adjusting the scope on his rifle "Repeat, that's a negative"

"Roger" The leader replied and switched off his stealth equipement, allowing himself to be seen once again. He tuned towards the man standing beside him, seeing his green form clearly in the Night Vision display.

"Breaching charge"

The man nodded. A pause in the Raiders' blind firing has provided him with just the time he needed, he took a long step, positioning himself just in the point where the two large doors were joined and attached them with a small white block he removed from his pants' pocket.

"Set and ready" The man said.

The leader nodded and switched his stealth gear on.

"On my mark, move in and exterminate"

He preformed one last check on his assault rifle and flipped up a large rectangular shaped sight on the front end of his grip.

"Mark"

In a second, the doors were reduced to a large cloud of smoke and shards of glass that flew everywhere. The trio could clearly hear an orchestra of screams as the ball of fire and glass tore through whoever was close enough to the door, the smell of burnt flesh was in the air.

"Move!"

The three men assault team rushed into the complex; inside, the Raiders were in disarray, some were staring in shock at the doorway, where four of the friends have been killed, some were running at random and some were barking orders mixed with profanities.

"Fan out" The leader said.

His two squadmates turned sideways and opened fire, killing the Raiders that tried to rush towards the doorway and replace their dead friends. Tracking a target with his eyes, he found his mark; a group of them, at least six, were hiding behind a counter on the other side of the large room, he was able to make out the shapes of grenades and land mines on the counter.

He grinned.

Assuming a crouched position, he changed the grip on his rifle and took aim through the rectangular sight. As he pulled the trigger, the under-mounted barrel of his rifle let out a loud thumping noise and a single round was sent screaming into the air, missing the head of a surprised Raider and colliding against the opposing wall

The entire backside of Super Duper Mart was covered by a curel orange fireball, the Raiders' screams could not even be heard over the sudden roar of fire that erupted when the high explosive round went off, taking all the Raiders' explosives supply with it. Several more Raiders who were too far for the fireball to consume fell to the ground, blood was poring out of their ears as their sensitive eardrums were torn by the loud explosion

"Find them and fucking KILL THEM!" one of them yelled blindly.

Gunfire erupted at random. The Raiders were firing in all directions; the narrow hallways of Super Duper Mart were turned into deathtraps as bullets screamed through the narrow passes, tearing through flesh and armor, ripping apart metal as tin cans were blown off the isle shelves and flown across the room.

Even the makeshift catwalks the Raiders have set up were not effective enough; the three men were firing with deadly aim. Sreams of orders and profanities erupted from each and every corner of the Super Duper Mart as long streams of ammo were silenced by short, lethal bursts.

The Raiders were shooting randomly, wounding their comrades in a failed attempt to catch whoever was attacking. One of them stood on top of one of the shelves, emptying his sub-machineguns into thin air before being picked off by a precise shot to the head that sent him falling to the cold floor, his gun still at hand.

"WHERE THE HELL ARE THEY?" Another yelled, a woman, and was greeted by a burst of gunfire that tore through her face.

The three men advanced through the Raider ranks, they were too scared to think properly and arrange an attack plan, every bullet their team fired met its mark and with each shot, a Raider dropped.

Five minutes later, the carnage was over. Raider bodies lied strewn all over the bloodied isles of the Super Duper Mart. The three men strike team, now joined by the two snipers, began searching the large hall for what they came for.

It didn't take too long, the large metal cases were carelessly thrown behind the cashier's counter. One of snipers snorted with contempt.

"All content is accounted for?" One of them asked

"Negative" The sniper replied "One Mini-Nuke and a Fat Man Launch Module is missing"

"Alright" Another said "We need to pack out in fifteen minutes, keep searching, if we can't find it, it's probably not here anymore"

One of them suddenly shifted his aim towards one of the isles

"Looks like we left a survivor" They all went silent and could hear it now; muffled sobbing

"He's not going to interfere" One of the snipers said "Waste of ammo"

He reached for his pocked and held out a deck of cards

"Better leave a calling card"

Fifteen minutes later, the five men team assembled outside, in the parking lot of Super Duper Mart

"Any luck?"

"Negative" The leader of the assault team replied "Pack up and move back to home base. Sniper two, you stay behind, seventy-two hour observation, in case whoever took the Fat Man would come back"

"Roger"

With that, they parted. The parking lot, now strewn with bodies was as silent as a graveyard.

Death struck, and Death left.


End file.
